In the Run‐up to the 1999 elections, both academia and the media assumed that there would be a ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’ vote. This article challenges this assumption through a disaggregation of the election results. It illustrates an electoral heterogeneity within these communities with various classes voting in different ways. Moreover, the article demonstrates that lower income coloured and indian people were more reluctant to vote for the ANC while the more privileged sectors threw in their lot with the ruling party. It concludes that this is largely the result of the simultaneous application of an affirmative action policy with a neo‐liberal economic programme; the results of which enhance the material vulnerability of the poorest sectors of the indian and coloured communities.